A lot can happen in a hallway

“When God closes one door he opens another”

what happens when you find yourself waiting in the hallway?
One door closed and the other yet to be opened?

What then?

Well….you take one step at a time and put your trust in him.

That’s what.

So simple yet something that has taken months to finally sink in.

we have found ourselves in a “growing season in our walk” .  God is stretching our faith and tested us in areas we didn’t even realize needing tending.

It’s almost like a “reset”‘or a “‘do over” but what started out as unintentional has switched to completely intentional on our part and here we are “in the hallway” patiently waiting for God to intervene on our behalf.

It wasn’t always like this.

We lived our lives in the comfort behind “one door” and now we are moving towards another.

We weren’t living the life that he had designed or wanted for us. But with closed off ears which sadly, we  never even noticed.

From June until the end of November 2013 our family learned first hand what it was like to have daddy work out-of-town.
At first it looked like an amazing blessing.
A change in careers, change in site and a raise.
His shift was 10 & 4 so he worked 12 hour shifts for 10 days straight and was home for 4.
Really if you count travel time he was really home for 2 days.
Off early his last day of work he would drive 4 1/2 hours home one way.
When the weather changed and the roads started to get bad he would take an overcrowded bus home which wouldn’t get him into the city until after 11:00pm.
When he was home we would do our best to squeeze in 10 days of family time into 2 but it was hard.

We hardly went to church and it felt like all we were really doing was preparing him for another 10 days out-of-town.

I would pretended that it was like a normal 9-5 job but nighttime was an entirely different entity.

The kids missed their dad and I missed having my best friend lying in the bed beside me.

The youngest took to sleeping in my room night after night “because mommy was afraid of the dark”.
I found her snoring strangely soothing.

Summer came and went while we both worked and tried to get as much family time in as we could.
Summer quickly disappeared into fall leaving us both feeling exhausted and disconnected.
I have many girlfriends and this is how they spend their married lives.
Some fair well, others not so much.
I’m still confused why anyone would intentionally sign up for a part time marriage plus being a single mom the other part of the time.

The money is extremely good but it’s not the life we pictured having.

For ourselves or for our kids.

By the middle of September we had planned a week-long family vacation to sunny California where we were going to go to Disneyland, play at the beach and enjoy the sunshine.

A chance to reconnect, to laugh and to play.
The day before we left his job ended which throws an entirely different curve ball when you are about to embark on a vacation.

He was home for good this time.

Normally when you’re working with big oil the site shuts down for Christmas so we had already planned that he would start the courses needed for him to become an NCSO safety officers.
With a little shuffling he was able to finish the course just after the new year.

We are morphing into the family we believe God designed for us to be.

More connected to each other and to him.
To follow after him one step at a time, trusting him for our needs every day.

To be authentic in our faith walk so that people will know that we are followers of Jesus and “not a fan”.

And we want to show our kids too.

We have added a nightly meal time devotional which felt weird at first but it’s getting easier.

Because the middle two kids can read we get them to help and they seem to genuinely enjoy the conversation.

I enjoy hearing their answers and am not missing any tales of Lego characters or who got a “yellow” at school.

We just added a weekly board game night which if you know my hubby at all this is almost close to pulling out teeth.

Perhaps he doesn’t appreciate my mad skills playing candy-land?
Whatever the case  the kids love it.

I would have to say that real change started after my hubby and I attended a bible study at church called  “not a fan “ by Kyle idleman

This is the first study in a long time that crawled under our skin and kick started our faith into a place neither one of us had been in a long time.

Our quiet time with God has increased and we are becoming more aware of changes that we need to make to draw into a deeper and closer relationship with him.

We are tithers even when it was sporadic but we never gave it a second thought if we were putting the money where he wanted us to.

We just put it our envelope in the plate and pass it to the next person sitting in the pew beside us.

But when your intentional about listening to God and putting the money where he wants it to go change happen. Even if you can’t see it at first.

We are stepping out in faith in areas of our lives that has surprised a few of our closest friends but that’s ok.

It surprised me too.

Trusting isn’t always easy but that’s something he’s working the kinks out of too.

We have changed our prayers and are believing God for an amazing work opportunity here in the city.
We are believing he will be able to stay home.
No more traveling for work.
And we took it a step further.
One of my husbands dreams has been to open his own company so we took a leap of faith and opened one believing he will get hired on as a private contractor and his business will be off and running.

We have had a lot of encouragement along the way but there have been those who believe they are a “voice of reason” and have been more discouraging than encouraging.

Who’s to say where this will end up. Where we will be at the end of this year? Or even a year from now?

That’s the funny part when you’re a follower. We are going to say things and do things that will seem foolish.
We are going to believe things that are controversial and against what the world says.

I have already lost friends over comments that made on Facebook because my views and opinions are different from theirs. I’m okay with that.

We will follow where He leads even if the door isn’t quite open yet.

For now we wait in the hallway.

Enjoying Him and each other.
Exactly where I am supposed to be.